. Basic Facts of Beekeeping to Make Honey

Because of its popularity, many people are now convinced that they should also try beekeeping. The news about how magnificent beekeeping is has been unfolded and due to this, thousands of people all over the world are now finding ways so that they could already start doing this thing.

Many are saying that beekeeping did a lot of good things to them because it is not just a mere hobby, it can also be considered as a serious business because it is also capable of bringing large amount of income. For sure you are one of these people who are aspiring to have their own beekeeping business. It is not a bad idea because you could truly get plenty of benefits in it. You will not only enjoy and get a huge income; you would also have this honey on your breakfast table every morning.

But then again, it is not easy to start beekeeping just like that. There are certain information that you must know and there are some preparations that you need to do first. I am certain that you got a lot of questions in your mind right now about beekeeping. Beginning beekeeping is absolutely complicated. When you are beginning beekeeping, there is a need for you to be aware of the necessary information about it so that you will be able to run it smoothly and there will be no problems in the future.

As a neophyte beekeeper, the first thing that you have to focus on is the place where you will put up your beekeeping business. This would surely need some space. If you have a huge space on your backyard then you are lucky because you can certainly put your beekeeping business there. However, you need to see to it that its surface is balance. It will be an advantage if you are living on the countryside because bees don't really suit to be in the city.

Aside from the location, in beginning beekeeping, there is also a need for you to focus on the bee hives. This is important because this is where you will put your bees and this is where you will get your honey which will be your number one product. Cedar is said to be the greatest bee hive since it has a great impact on the aroma of the honey. You must first discover if the bee hive that you will choose will suit the bees that you are raising.

Henry Terrell is a bee keeper and his hobby is beekeeping. He has a lot of benefits to offer. If you can overcome the fear of being stung by a bee, then beekeeping can be worth a try. For more details please visit this site: Beekeeping Success

Learning how to raise honey bees is an honorable hobby, and it can work into a rewarding profession as well. After all bees are totally necessary for our natural environment. They pollinate about 80% of all flowering plants. But bees are diminishing in number due to the intrusion of pests.

So, if you start beekeeping in your neighborhood, you will be helping to keep our planet green. How about that for an encouragement? Seriously, there is a need for more healthy bees.

As you know, bees live in hives, either natural or artificial. Natural hives are becoming harder and harder to find due to the pestilence mentioned above. But, if you could find a natural hive, you could bring those bees to your hive.

Oh, did I forget to mention that you need a hive? You can build your own hive, or you can purchase one from an established beekeeper.

Once you have your hive ready, you can bring in your bees. Once again, you have a choice to make.

First, you can get your bees from a natural source as mentioned above. By the way, if you find someone who has a hive in their attic or some other cavity in their house, they will gladly let you take the bees for free (might even pay you to do it).

Second, you can buy a bee package. Bee packages are sold by professional beekeepers. They are just a bunch of bees in a box with a queen in a separate container. You take them to your hive and pour them in, hoping that they will like the queen and begin a colony. Within a couple of weeks you may have a working hive.

Third, you can buy a bee package know in the bee trade as a NUC - it stands for Nuclear Hive. Actually it is a mini working hive. Usually NUCs come in a cardboard box with 4 or 5 frames of bees. There is a queen in the NUC who is related to the other bees (unlike the package bees). All you need to do is transfer the bees to your hive, and you are in the beekeeping business.

Of course there is a lot more to know about how to raise honey bees than where to get bees for your hive. The more you read and learn, the better off you will be to start beekeeping and have great success.

Beekeeping is a rewarding hobby. Perhaps you are ready to take the next step in learning about beekeeping for beginners. One of the best things you can do is join a local bee keepers association. You can also take the next step by visiting http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-raise-honeybees. Wishing you a hiveful of success!

If you can follow simple step by step instructions... you really can create your own garden beehive.

If you can understand simple black and white diagrams... you really can create your own garden beehive.

If you can measure and cut a board and hammer a nail... you really can create your own garden beehive.

Not only do you get the parts checklists and diagrams, you also get step-by-step videos for the Garden Hive Construction. On the off chance something didn't make sense in the book, everything will be perfectly clear in the video. And with these videos, you'll be able to watch them directly on the computer screen itself! Detailed pictures and diagrams showing every hive part so you can easily visualize your completed beehive as you build it.

Detailing every part of the beehive to make sure you get all the info you need to build your hive. The types of materials used to build beehives. These materials are easy to find and also very inexpensive. You can build a complete beehive for less than a night on the town! 56 pages!!! You get content and a lot of it in a concise, easy to read format. Step by step "Point of View" pictures - Never worry about getting lost in the instructions again! You'll know exactly what to do and when to do it!

It's wintertime here at Honey Rustlin' Farms. Although outsiders may think this is a time for beekeepers to relax, it's actually a pretty busy, critical time of preparation for the upcoming season. This is when we build our beehive equipment, purchase beekeeping supplies, clean up the honey house, and plan for the upcoming spring. To not prepare now can be very detrimental later.

The same applies to other beekeepers. If you are a new beekeeper who has not yet purchased your first bee hive, winter is the time to place a down payment on your first bees. But many new beekeepers do not know how to go about doing this. Here's some pointers to help you out:

If at all possible, try to purchase bees from a local beekeeper in your state. This is important, since local bees will be acclimated to your weather conditions and there's less chance of bringing in outside diseases and pests. Plus, you'll have someone nearby to call on if you need assistance.Learn all you can now, before making your first purchase. There's good information for new beekeepers online and at bookstores.Consider purchasing your bee hive equipment in the winter, before you buy your bees. This allows you to set up the beekeeping equipment and learn all about the different components in the hive you purchase. Find a reputable beekeeping equipment business to purchase from, preferably someone who is a beekeeper himself.Avoid bee packages. Packaging bees is stressful for the bees and the queens. Most businesses that package bees throw bees together from many different hives and an outside queen is introduced.We recommend purchasing a Nuc hive. A Nuc is a small scale version of a regular hive. The bees are split off from the same larger hive and usually 5 frames of honey, brood, and pollen are included. This gives them a big boost in the spring, since they don't need to go out immediately and find a food source. Bees from bee packages, on the other hand, are forced to fly out, find nectar, and reproduce as soon as possible in order to survive.Place a down payment on your bees in the winter, long before the spring season begins. Bees sell out fast in our area, so If you wait too long, you may not be able to get them!Good luck to all those starting in beekeeping this year. With proper preparation, you will have a successful start to your new hobby. If all goes well, you may even get some honey this summer!

Eileen Ranck, and her husband, Nevin, own Honey Rustlin' Farms, a Virginia apiary that sells beekeeping equipment, bee hives, nucs, and bee supplies. They are located 45 minutes north of the North Carolina line in central, south Virginia. You can purchase your bees and beekeeping equipment from them by visiting their website at http://www.honeyrustler.com or calling them at (toll free) 866-587-3362.

They also own a fence construction business at http://www.qualityhorsefence.com

In the wild, bees will build their hive in a tree hollow or some similar structure. While perfectly good enough for the bees, in this location it was difficult for man to take their honey - hence the invention of artificial beehives, which have actually been around since about 2,500 BC.

Currently the Egyptians hold the place of the earliest civilization recognized to have beekeepers. Bees served several primary jobs for them. Produce honey for consumption and pollinate all the local crops. Beeswax was used as well as a sealant and during the mummification process.

Rather than the modern beehive we recognse today, the Egyptians kept bees in straw baskets called skeps. The main disadvantage of these was that to harvest the honey, the skep had to be destroyed and all the bees died.

Today we still use all of these resources provided by the bee. But to make for an easier collection of these consumables, several styles of hives are available on the market. You will find four common modern or artificial movable frame beehives. These include the Langstroth hive, the national hive, the commercial hive, and the WBC hive.

Reverend Lorenzo Langstroth patented the movable-frame type of beehive In the mid-1800s. Langstroth who is known today as the "Father of American Beekeeping" realized that when he created an organized structure of frames with a specific distance between the frames (known as bee space), the bees would build their combs in a manner that the frames could be removed to gather honey without destroying the hive. Bees would not seal the hive with honeycomb nor with propolis. Propolis is a resinous mixture gathered by bees to seal off unwanted hive spaces.

The national hive was derived from the Langstroth model. It is the most common type in you'll find in the United Kingdom. It's brood box is smaller than that of the Langstroth. While the space may be too small for the modern productive bee, the great advantage to this particular design is that it is much easier to handle when it is full of honey.

The WBC hive, named after William Broughton Carr, its designer, is the classic traditional beehive. It has the unique quality of carrying a double wall as opposed to the single walls found on other movable frame models. The outside of the box is designed in pyramidal sections. Inside are loose separate boxes that hold the frames.

The commercial hive houses deep frames that can hold massive amounts of honey. It is similar to the national in design but is created on a much larger scale for commercial purposes.

You may now realize that not all bees are the same, and neither are their homes. Whatever facet of beekeeping you decide to pursue, keep in mind these types of beehives when considering which may be the right home for your bees.

Val Wilson is passionate about all things beekeeping! It is an incredibly rewarding hobby in so many ways, so if you would like more information about how to start beekeeping, go to www.bestbeekeeping.com and sign up for the FREE 7 day beekeeping ecourse.

The topbar beehive is not a new concept. Historical reference to the top-bar hive date back to the 1600's. Most of today's top bar bee hives are derived from work in the 1960's. It was perfected for use in Kenya, Africa, and is often referred to as the Kenya Hive. Today it is also used in many other developing countries for it's simple design and cost effective management methods. In recent years it has also become more popular in the United States.

The traditional Langstroth beehive consists of several boxes (supers) and numerous other parts that are either difficult to build or expensive to buy. In addition to the beehive, the Langstroth hive requires many other pieces of equipment to harvest honey and manage your bees. Not so with the top bar hive as you can read below.

Simple and Maintenance-Free

The top bar hive has only a few components: the hive body (box), 20 to 30 top bars (frames), and a lid. That's all you will ever need. Compare that to your Langstroth hive. Bees build their own comb which eliminates the need for costly frames. The top bars are re-used after the harvest.

Non-Invasive Design

The top bar hive is healthier for bees. To check your bees, you will not have to take the whole thing apart. Hence, your bees will be less disturbed by your presence and checking of the comb.

Easy Harvest

To harvest your honey, you simply remove the bars with honeycomb. Unlike traditional methods, you won't have to take the hive apart and disturb the bees as much. Not only is the top bar hive less stressful to harvest for you, it also does not disturb the bees as much. In addition to honey, the top bar hive has more beeswax to harvest. You also do not need a honey extractor/centrifuge or uncapping knife which saves you thousands of dollars. Smoking is completely unnecessary and many top bar hive users do not wear protective clothing either. (For the beginner I do advise to use some kind of protection, gloves and veil as the minimum!) Once you remove the honey comb, the bees will go about their business as usual. Try that on a Langstroth hive.

Healthier Bees

The top bar hive is designed for the bees' optimal living conditions. This makes a colony much stronger and enables it to fight off pests and diseases on their own, much better than in a Langstroth hive. Besides healthier bees this will save you hundreds of dollars in medication as well as disappointment.

Why doesn't everyone use top bar hives?

The top bar hive is not designed for maximum honey production, although there have been reports otherwise. For the hobby beekeeper a few pounds less honey are well worth the ease of management. You will harvest more beeswax with a top bar hive though. Any hobbyist should have more of an interest in keeping healthy bees than in squeezing out a few more pounds of honey from a stressed, overworked colony. With just one top bar hive, you will still have more than enough honey for your whole family and friends.

Starting the beekeeping hobby could be a hard task. It is because you have to deal with the different beekeeping informations and details that could launch you into becoming one of the most victorious beekeepers in the world. Beekeeping supplies should be prepared at all costs so you will have a victorious beekeeping journey for life.

The basic beekeeping supplies needed for your beekeeping journey starts with the bees, the hives, nuc boxes, frames and swarms. But beekeeping supplies vary from each beekeeper. For starters however, they should be equipped with the beekeeping supplies that aim for gaining more pleasure than profits right away. It is also advised to have beekeeping medication in order to control the supplies that you have.

The first beekeeping supply that you should have is of course the bee. You can purchase bees from different sources. You can have them in packages. It is advised that you choose bees carefully so that you will not face further problems most especially with pests and diseases that your bees might encounter sooner or later.

Next are the hives. These beekeeping supplies come in different types. The Langsroth hive is often the commonly chosen hive for it comes with removable frames. You can inspect the bees just in case they are already being infected by pests. Top bar hives are also chosen yet they are expensive kinds. These kinds of bee hives are however, easy to use.

Supers are also needed since they are necessary in order to safeguard the beehives from tremendous climate conditions. They are full of 9 or 10 frames that can be either profound or shallow.

Other beekeeping supplies used as personal equipments are gloves, veil and beekeeper sheathing. These are helpful in shielding your protection. If you are a beginner in beekeeping, you are supposed to be dressed in defensive garments, together with hooded costume, hat and gloves.

Another beekeeping supplies needed are smokers. These are simple fireboxes that are utilized in order to produce smoke for yielding honey from the hives.

You also need to have honey extracting equipments. Extracting gears play an important position in beekeeping. If you require yielding a little quantity of honey, you can just use a bee brush to brush the bees starting from each frame. You can also employ bee escape boards to start a way for the bees. Extractors composed from stainless steel are tougher than artificial extractors. You can set off for either labor-intensive extractor or a mechanical one. Just make sure your budget fits in.

Several locations all over the world produce honey for food and medicine. There are many beekeepers in certain parts of Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States. Though bee keeping started in Europe and was brought to the United States later, it is more modernized in the United States. There are different cultures for keeping bees in different countries. Honey is used as food in most of the cultures and in some for religious concoctions that are sweetened with honey. The Americans make honey for commercial purposes to be sold in supermarkets and also to send it abroad to other countries for sale. The honey is put into containers with their brand names put on it and sent out to areas where honey is scarce or not produced at all.

1. There is no mass production of honey in many countriesUnlike in America, most of the other countries do not produce enough honey to be able to ship some to other countries too. America manages to harvest enough honey in one season so that it lasts them until next spring to get ready for the next shipment. The bees are usually inactive during the winter and produce honey only in the warmer summer months when there are more flowers around the place for pollination. This is when the mating starts too and then the bees are busy producing honey and taking care of the larvae. United States is known to produce the most honey around the world and also to provide it to the supermarkets all over the world.

2. Maintaining of hivesThe hives do not need too long a time on a daily basis for maintenance. If the beekeepers watch over the hives one hour on a daily basis this should be sufficient. This is needed mainly during the peak season which is between May to September. If the season is good the beekeeper can get around 60 to 100 pounds of honey. What also matters is the price that the beekeeper gets per pound of his honey and with this he can gauge what his earning will be in the future for every harvest.

3. How to increase the produce of honeyThe biggest problems the beekeepers face are the bumble bees which hide in the ground and swarm up from there to visit the flowers that have already been visited by the bees. To avoid this beekeepers changes the place of the hives around, and this is also beneficial to the honey production as the bees have new flowers to pollinate and more honey is cultivated this way. This is called the migratory system amongst the beekeepers when they change the place of their hives. The different batches of honey produced with this vary according to the pollination. The taste of the honey depends on the flowers that the bees have been pollinating.

Months in this article relate to the northern hemisphere cool temperate climate.

MAYIn the Hive:

Brood rearing is in full swing. The bees are busy collecting pollen and nectar. To take advantage of an early honey flow, the brood chamber should be full of bees.

Jobs for the beekeeper:

The growing colony needs room, so introduce frames, as they are needed. In hives with supers these frames can be hung near the brood nest where they will be drawn out sooner. Once a frame has been drawn out, you can swap it for one on the outside. Every beekeeper develops his own working pattern for this, but the golden beekeeping rule is never to fiddle with the brood nest.

If, despite a good honey flow, a colony slackens off its building work, this is an indication that swarming may be imminent. In this case, put in empty combs so that the queen can lay immediately. As soon as there are bees on all the combs, it is time to consider whether the brood nest needs expansion. The brood nest can be extended by moving two or three frames of capped brood into a second deep box just above the queen excluder, making sure the queen stays below.

The capped brood frames are then replaced with foundation or empty drawn combs. Alternatively, the queen can be given access to a second deep or shallow box under the queen excluder, so that she can work over twenty or more frames.

Honey supers must be added ahead of the bees to give them house and storage room. Some beekeepers dispense with queen excluders. They take out frames of honey as the bees fill them, for extraction, and return them to the hive, or simply pile on more honey suppers if all the beeways are full of bees.

The honey flow from oil-seed rape can bring on a swarming impulse. If you want to stop the bees swarming, you may need to fit a special dividing board. As it is not always possible to stop swarming, you will have to be ready to cope with any swarms that do occur. It is also important not to forget about building up young colonies.

If you try to ask some beekeepers why they keep bees, you will probably get different answers. Some may say that they keep bees because they like bees. Although this is a good reason to be a beekeeper, but the main reason why people choose to be a beekeeper is the satisfaction they feel knowing that bees play an important role in the nature.

Honey bees are very helpful in the pollination process. In fact, they carry out more pollination compare to other insects like butterflies, bumblebees, and flies. They can pollinate many different types of plants. One of the reasons why honey bees carry 80 percent of the pollination is because they spend the winter in the colony thus; they are ready to collect pollens in the spring where plants are in bloom. Another reason is that honey bees practice flower fidelity and do not pollinate plants in random so there is assurance that the pollen reaches the right plant.

In the past, people tend to fear bees because they think bees are aggressive and harmful creatures. But, as time passed by, more and more people get fascinated with bees wondering how thousands of bees can live together harmoniously. If you have plan of becoming a beekeeper, you should ask yourself if you have the ability to become one. The most important requirement to become a beekeeper is the love for bees. It is good to have love for the nature but it is not necessary to result in beekeeping if you do not have the prior knowledge how to raise honey bees properly.

First and foremost, you have to understand the basic rules of beekeeping. If you really want to become successful just like the other beekeepers in your place, you should learn the nature of bees. Every beginner should know that each colony is different from the other thus it requires individual handling.

Being an established beekeeper is such a great achievement in your part. Nothing can be compared to the satisfaction you can feel once you have raised one colony and produce large amount of honey successfully. At first, you may find a hard time working with your bees but in time, you will learn everything you need to ensure you will have healthy and productive honey bees. You cannot possibly work alone. You need the knowledge of other beekeepers to enrich your knowledge. This is why beekeeping is such a fascinating profession. You will come across different surprises.

Clement Hinton is a beekeeper and his hobby is beekeeping. He has a lot of benefits to offer. If you can overcome the fear of being stung by a bee, then beekeeping can be worth a try. For more details please visit this site: Beekeeping Success

Beekeeping is one of the best-kept business secrets. It has a history of making consistent money for beekeepers, that practice the time-tested methods of beekeeping. Even during economic recessions and financial turmoil demand for bee based products remains high due to their health benefits and use in recipes. Moreover, just about anybody can get into the beekeeping business with a little knowledge and a little money.

It's important to understand that the beekeeping business can generate an enormous amount of cash very quickly. However, like in any business you have to educate yourself on the best industry practices. The beekeeping industry is constantly evolving. Therefore, you must use the Internet search engines, online forums, industry publications and other resources to stay on top of the ever-changing beekeeping business environment.

Bees can be dangerous. Therefore, you must start out your business small until you understand exactly how bees react to your presence and business plan. Bees are not like normal household animals. They can become very aggressive very quickly if you don't know what you're doing. This is how bees protect themselves. When bees, get really frightened they then attack by stinging. So it is a important that you acquire proper protection before you start maintaining bee hives.

Proper protection consists of protective gloves, body suits and headgear. You cannot just hand bees food like you do your household cat. Bees are much more complex than that so you must know what you're doing otherwise, you risk getting hurt.

There are also some common beekeeping tools that you need to become familiar with before you can begin your beekeeping business. The most common tool which you always see beekeepers use on TV is the smoke box. This tool is used to calm the bees if they get too aggressive. The smoke box is simple to use. You just blow a few puffs of smoke on the bees if they become too wild. The smoke disorients the bees and therefore they become less aggressive and less of a threat to you as the beekeeper.

If you do your homework, you can create an endless stream of profits with beekeeping. Furthermore, you're going to make many people very happy by providing them with high quality bee based products.

Beekeeping needs to be encouraged, because they provide great tasting honey and help the environment. Beekeepers are also known as apiarists. Apiary or apiculture, which derives its meaning from the Latin word apis, which means bee, is the maintenance of honey bee hives by humans.

Honey bees can be improved by selective breeding, provided that the predominant sub-species is the same. Ireland is actually in a unique position, since they have a great reserve of pure native strains of the Dark European Honey Bee, which is the indigenous bee of these islands. Honey bees are mostly used for their large-scale honey production because they stockpile honey for their entire colony.

Modern hives can also be moved in order for the bees to pollinate specific areas and focus on honey production in others. Beekeepers want their colonies to reach their maximum strength before the nectar flow of honey begins. That way, bees store the honey as a surplus that the beekeeper can easily harvest, instead of using the honey to complete their spring build-up.

Honey bees can be safely removed by humans from houses and other nesting sites by carefully removing the entire nest (bees, wax, brood and honey). They can be very defensive toward anyone that approaches their hive though. Alarmed worker bees will release substances from their glands in the sting apparatus and mouth parts which cause other bees to attack, and therefore, mass stinging incidents can occur.

Honey bees can be found worldwide. They live in hollow trees as well as in hives kept by their beekeepers. Beekeepers that manage African colonies will often tape their bee suits to their boots and gloves to limit the possibility of bee access. Beekeepers must remember that they are manipulating a "black box" in which not all the desired results can be attained through selection.

You probably hear so much about beekeeping business. Almost all of the people who try to engage in beekeeping confirmed that this is such a very rewarding and satisfying business. You start thinking the idea of having your own beekeeping business but still uncertain where and how to start. You have heard that there are a lot of things that you should consider before you can start raising honey bees. Thus, you start searching for different information about beekeeping.

The best way to get started with working with bees is through beekeeping training. Actually, there are more and more people who like to bring back the bees in the nature but hindered with the idea that beekeeping is just intended for experts. The fact is, beekeeping is not really a complicated thing. In fact, everyone can start his beekeeping business provided that he has the desire to raise honey bees.

Before starting in your beekeeping training, you have to prepare the different bee equipments needed. Although beekeeping is said to be simple, you can never gain your success to become an established beekeeper if you do not have the important bee equipments to get started. Money is not a problem in beekeeping because you can always find affordable yet quality bee equipment. The internet will become very useful in your search. There are a number of online sites which you can visit in finding affordable bee equipment.

To get started with your beekeeping training, you will need some important tools and equipment such as bee hives, a smoke box, hive opening tool, and of course your protective beekeeping suit. After preparing your tools and equipments, you can now find and get your honey bees. There are different ways to harvest your bees. You can purchase packed bees from local beekeepers or from online sites. Buying your bees from known beekeeper is a better choice because you can also ask them the different ways to become a successful beekeeper.

But, if you have a limited budget, you can start hunting your bees from the colony found on tress. As you can see, you can still your training in beekeeping although you have a tight budget. Just be careful in hunting bees because they might sting you once you hurt them. For your safety, you should wear protective gear before you catch bees.

As you can see, starting your own beekeeping business is not that difficult as other people know. You do not have to be expert in bees to become successful beekeeper. You can learn everything in time. All you need is the desire to work with bees.

Clement Hinton is a bee keeper and his hobby is beekeeping. He has a lot of benefits to offer. If you can overcome the fear of being stung by a bee, then beekeeping can be worth a try. For more details please visit this site: Beekeeping Success.

First, let me give you two hints about how to raise honey bees that will keep you safe.

#1. Bees can not see white, so wear white when you approach your hive.

#2. Males do not sting. Only females can sting, so if you are in the midst of males, you do not have to be concerned. "But how do you tell the difference?" you ask. Easy, the males are the ones doing all the work (hehe... just kidding)

Beekeeping for Beginners is a guide to help you get set up with your own personal bee hives. You will get all the necessary information about how to raise honey bees as a hobby or for profit. As you begin your new beekeeping venture, you will be given such helpful information as:

When should you start your first bee hiveWhere should you set up your hivesWhat kind of bees are the best to getHow to protect your bees from ants and other predatorsHow much honey to take out of the hive at one timeBeekeeping is an honorable undertaking. Did you know that honey bees pollinate 80% of all green growing plants? Also, honey bees will only pick pollen that is high in nutrients and amino acids, thus producing the perfect food.

If you decide to pursue the business end of beekeeping, you will be able to harvest honey and bees wax for sale. There are many home and commercial uses for bee products, not the least of which is in the health and beauty industry. Have you noticed how many products there are with either honey or bees wax listed in the ingredients?

Yes, bees are busy answering the call of nature... big time.

Perhaps you are ready to take the next step in learning about beekeeping for beginners. One of the best things you can do is join a local bee keepers association. You can also get started at http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-raise-honeybees. Wishing you a hiveful of success!

When you want to learn about bee keeping, always make sure that you are ready and prepared with the planning and the performing of due responsibilities that come along the process. Beekeeping is undeniably one of the most challenging activities to delve in. But once you are in it, you will find out that more and more challenges are met. If you manage to generate more honey than what you expected then you could gain more income and profit by selling them to your friends and neighbors.

In learning how to do beekeeping, you must take note of a lot of things that can truly affect the production of honey. Even though there is no real time to set off to obtain your bees, it is still important to know when the best time to start beekeeping is. Winter is the highly-advised season to start beekeeping.

By this time, you have to prepare the materials that you need the moment you have set off with your beekeeping project. You primarily need to buy a bee hive, a bee suit and a smoker. You should also think about the place where you are going to place your bee hive so that you can begin right away. You also need to prepare the things that should be used like honey bee extractor as this equipment will help much in straining the honeycomb in order to have a clearer honey production.

During summertime, you have to collect nectars for honey production and reproduction. You have to always check your bees in order to make certain that they are safe and are free from termites. Also make sure that they have enough space to move at least freely. This is very important because if the space is too crowded there is a tendency of swarming which will soon make the queen bee leave her beehive to find a roomy place to produce honey. You don't want this to happen that is why you should always keep an eye for your beehives.

Late summer is the best time to collect honey. This is a messy work but at the end of the day, the tasks are so rewarding. You should make sure that you have the honey bee extractor with you so that you can work faster. Honey bee extractor is a helpful devise in order to harvest honey form the honey comb without even destroying the comb.

As you can see, bee keeping is a great challenge to face. This is a challenge that offers you extra cash at the end of the day.

Derick Schroede is a bee keeper and his hobby is beekeeping. He has a lot of benefits to offer. If you can overcome the fear of being stung by a bee, then beekeeping can be worth a try. For more details please visit this site: Beekeeping Success

Honeybees are a joy to behold. Raising them and studying them is a great hobby. Beekeeping has been common for hundreds of years.

Just for the record book, here is a definition from Wikipedia:

"Honey bees (or honeybees) are a subset of bees in the genus Apis, primarily distinguished by the production and storage of honey and the construction of perennial, colonial nests out of wax."

Most of the honey making and gathering takes place during the spring and summer. This is when the hive is the most active. But what happens to our little friends during the cold weather?

The colony survives the winter inside the hive by population control. They do this by giving the guy honeybees the ole bee-boot, thus reducing the population. This works because there is no function for the males during cold weather. Their basic job is gathering nectar and pollen during warm weather. Sorry guys, ya gotta go! But don't worry, it is nature's way.

The remaining inhabitants in a man-made and maintained hive feed off the stored honey left in the hive by the beekeepers. Beginning beekeepers need to be aware that some honey should be left for just such a purpose.

During cold weather they cluster together to keep warm and rotate positions within the hive so that each takes his turn being on the colder outer area and the warmer inner area. To generate extra heat when needed, workers will consume honey and move in and out of the center all the while raising their body temperatures by contracting the flight muscles in the thorax without moving the wings.

Some folks who practice backyard beekeeping may provide some kind of shelter for their honeybees. This might be a cover that fits over the boxes or a physical shelter or lean-to to protect the boxes from wind and extreme temperature. Suggested temperature for winter maintenance is about 40 degrees.

Once the weather begins to change and spring approaches, activity inside the hive picks up. At this time, if a colony is too crowded they will swarm. This is when the old queen gathers about half of the inhabitants of the hive and heads out to find another place to carry out business.

You may see swarms during the spring on a protruding branch or even a city light pole as they wait for scouts to find a suitable place for the new colony.

This is the time when a backyard beekeeping gets interesting. The beekeeper needs to be aware that he can add additional boxes or hive space to keep his colony from swarming. Selling overstocked bees is a side benefit of the hobby.

Also, if you want to get started in the hobby, you may be able to locate starter swarms by contacting your local area beekeeping club.

New colonies now begin to build the wax core of the hive to store honey and build the population of the hive. There will be a "girl fight" between queens until only one remains. She will lay eggs to produce new workers and drones, and the honey production begins.

Backyard Beekeeping is a worthy hobby - one worth considering. It can pay for itself when you sell the honey. You can join local clubs of folks who share your interests and passions. These club members are always ready and willing to give you advice, especially if you are a beginning beekeeper. Find out more at http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-raise-honeybees.

In beekeeping, you can not simply set up the business without the necessary bee keeping information. Just like in any business endeavor, beekeeping requires a lot of considerations. If you are about to start the business, you have to make sure that you are equipped with the needed information. For instance, you must know that bees, like other insects, tend to rest during winter. Therefore, you have to plan ahead before fall ends. There are certain things you need to prepare in order for your bees to survive the winter. You also have to make sure that when spring season comes, they are ready to produce more honey.

To help you with your beekeeping business venture, let me share you these three bee keeping information that can definitely of big help towards beekeeping success.

Firstly, you have to verify if your queen bee can still lay more eggs. As you are already aware of, queen bee plays the most vital role inside a bee colony. She is the mother of your hardworking bees so that you can have a bountiful harvest of honey. Thus, it is with good reason to check if your queen bee can still enlarge the population of your bees in your beehive. Once you have discovered that she lacks this ability, then, it's about time to buy additional queen.

The next you need to know is the amount of honey your bees are producing. So that your bees can have sufficient food for themselves, they must produce enough honey. One way to determine that you have sufficient supply of honey is when your bees are capable of producing 50 pound of honey for each colony. However, if the case is the otherwise, then you have to prepare some form of sugar syrup as their food.

And the third one is the need to secure the perfect location of your beehive. You have to make sure that the location of your beehive is located in an area where supply of water is sufficient. Furthermore, the beehive should also be located in a place where sunlight can reach it. These are necessary in order to keep your bees healthy and productive. It is also important for the beehive to be placed in a secluded area so that it is away from any disturbance.

Alright, there you go. As you can understand, there are really a lot of things you need to consider to ensure your beekeeping success. This means that you have to gain more bee keeping information on how you can keep your bees healthy and productive

Gerry Montgonmer is a hobby Bee keeper and beekeeping, has a lot of benefits to offer. If you can overcome the fear of being stung by a bee, then beekeeping can be worth a try. You can find most of the topics regarding his written works at this site: Beekeeping Success

Due to the wide spread honeybee keeping business now all over the world, people have started asking questions about the basic beekeeping info required to start such a project. Usually, all the questions revolve around the best location, how to obtain bees, and the potential profit.

The suitable location

Beekeeping is one of those business activities that do not require a lot of space. Each hive only needs 5 to 7 square feet. This area is enough for doing the maintenance and the regular checking. Hives should be located on a balanced surface not a sloped one. The location should be aerated and not exposed to direct sun light.

Any region or location may be suitable for establishing a bee farm. The best places are where there are no other business areas around as bees can travel and search for their food in a circle with a radius of four miles. It is important that nectar is made available within this circle so the bees keep eating and generating honey.

The suitable hive and bees

Local beekeeping farms could supply you with very useful ideas about the basic beekeeping info required to develop your business. The hives are usually made of two types of wood: pine and cedar. If cedar is suitable for your local region, then go for it as it has a special impact on the honey aroma.

Your local bee supplies store could help you to obtain your bees. You can get a complete colony ready to produce honey in just few days. There are other ways to get your bees but that requires more experience and time to retrieve them.

The handy tools

There are some tools like the hook, the scraper, the magnifying lens and the smoke box. These tools can not be spared by any bee keeper whether he is a professional or just starting his first bee farm.

Beekeeping Info offers really good information to get you started as a successful beekeeper. They provide access to a guide that will take you step by step to learn about beekeeping and bees first hand.

We have been successful at beekeeping for some time now. Thanks to the information that we found.

Months in this article relate to the northern hemisphere cool temperate climate.

JANUARY

In the beehive:

If it is very cold, the bees will be clustered tightly together. There will be no brood yet, but the bees are not asleep. They are generating heat by taking in food and moving around a little. At the edge of the cluster the temperature will seldom sink below 9 centigrade and the centre it will be around 25 centigrade. In frosty weather the bees counteract the cold by short bursts of activity, which can be heard as a loud buzzing.

It is a bad thing for the weather to fluctuate too much in January because the queen will start laying in mild weather. The worker bees then have to use their body reserves to nourish the brood, which shortens their lives. The strength of the colony in spring depends not only on the number of bees who have survived the winter (with luck about 10,000) but also how many are lost in the early spring months.

Jobs for the beekeeper:

The beekeeper should make regular visits to the apiary, just as he does in summer, to check that everything is all right.

- Can mice get into the hives?

- Are there any waving branches of trees disturbing the bees?

- Is any damp getting into the hives?

- Is the hive entrance blocked up with dead bees?

- It must be kept unblocked to allow the bees to fly out in mild weather.

And that is not all - the winter is a good time for doing practical jobs: building and repairing hives, making and wiring frames.

FEBRUARY

In the beehive:

In mid-February the mood in the winter cluster will be changing (this may happen later depending on the colony and where it is). In the center the first cells are being cleaned and receiving eggs from the queen. A small brood nest is being made. As the temperature rises, brood activity increases. On a fine day, when the temperature rises above 10 centigrade, some bees will release themselves from the cluster and risk a flight outside.

The bees rectum will be full of waste matter from the past three months. This will be excreted in flight, leaving yellow splashes of droppings scattered around.

Jobs for the beekeeper:

Check the hive entrance at regular intervals, even in bad weather. You will be able to tell a lot about the state of your bees just by a quick glance.

Months in this article relate to the northern hemisphere cool temperate climate.

MARCH

In the beehive:

In warm areas the colony will be starting on a new cycle of life. The steadily increasing brood and newly hatched bees will consume pollen. The colony consumes far more food in March than in the cold of December. In the warmth of the midday sun you can often see the young bees making their first tentative movements outside.

The bees must have access to water close to the hive. Even in the cold and damp they will venture outside to fetch water for the brood. If the source of water is too far, they can freeze to death.

Jobs for the beekeeper:

Place a source of water near to the hives, you could use a trough filled with moss or a container with a dripping tap from which water drips onto a board with a small groove. The bees must always be able to find water at the watering place. To help them find it initially, mix the water with a little honey.

Without disturbing the bees, check through their rubbish. The debris on the floor of the hive can tell you a lot about the condition of the colony: how much food they have consumed, how many have died in the winter.

Do not inspect the colonies without good reason. Queenless colonies should be united with another colony, but only if the temperature is above 15 centigrade. If the window in the rear-opening hive has misted over, the colony will be breeding and will not want to be disturbed. All they need in this case is warmth, honey, pollen and water.

If you have any pollen combs available, hang them in the vicinity of brood nest or even better, put them in earlier so that the bees have them over the winter. Start embedding foundation into frames, or make up frames with ready-wired foundation for the coming season: about twenty per colony, including young colonies and swarms. If you have rear-opening hives, you will probably need fewer. Take steps to ensure future honey flow when sowing and planting.

Months in this article relate to the northern hemisphere cool temperate climate.

APRILIn the beehive:

With blossom time well underway, the bee colony is also increasingly active. The bees are busy foraging, building and raising new bees. However, to say that the bees are at the beginning of a long foraging season is not quite true. Often the honey flow does not begin until May and ends at the beginning of July. April shows which of the colonies will be able to survive. The winter colony, with its long-lived bees, becomes a summer colony with short-lived bees. It is a good sign when this process of transformation starts late and a great mass of winter bees is available to take advantage of the early honey flow.

Jobs for the beekeeper:

A fine day in April is the time to carry out the first major inspection of the colony. Dirt and debris should be removed from the floors of the hive. If the colony is strong and large, it can be extended. Combs and drone frames, lightly sprayed with honey solution, can be introduced into the hive - but not until the first cherry trees are in blossom, because cherry blossom time is building time.

Rear-opening hives can be extended by gradually adding frames of foundation and empty frames. The frames of foundation are hung by the brood nest, taking care not to disturb anything. Any colonies, which are unsettled or queenless, should be united with others. For queenless colonies this is easy: the bees are shaken onto a cloth near the hives and then beg an entrance into other colonies. Weak colonies will have a bad queen, and it is advisable to find her and kill her. The bees can then be treated as above.

Any brood comb or comb filled with food can be hung in other hives. In a hive with supers a complete colony can be united with another quite easily. The queenless colony is simply put on top of another colony in its original hive. A newspaper soaked in honey, with small holes in it, is placed between the two. This allows the colonies, with their different odours, to get to know each other slowly. Gradually they bit through the paper.

As a rule of thumb, it is important to remember that strong colonies grow stronger and weak colonies weaker. If the weather is bad and the honey flow late, it may be necessary to feed the bees. This is a time when both bees and brood need lots of food. They must get it before they have an acute shortage, so they may need to be fed as early as Match. From April onwards you will need to check the quality of the combs.

4. Unlike refined table sugar or sucrose, honey does not ferment in our stomach to pose any danger of bacterial invasion.

5. Honey is a monosaccharide, the simplest form of sugar that cannot be further broken down, passing directly from the small intestine into the blood stream without causing any irritancy to our digestive system as sucrose does.

6. The most ideal fuel for burning our body fat stores during sleep due to its 1:1 ratio of fructose and glucose.

8. Honey contains vitamins and antioxidants; in fact one unique antioxidant called "pinocembrin" is only found in honey.

9. According to researchers, honey is a more effective and safer remedy for children's coughs than over-the-counter medicines.

10. Doctor D.C. Jarvis, author of "Folk Medicine" advised that mixing the apple cider vinegar with honey would enhance the healing power of the vinegar.

11. Anabolic honey, a concentrated source of fructose, glucose, is a preferred sweetener choice for athletes.

Eat honey, a good old-fashioned food designed by nature for us human beings!

Ruth Tan runs the popular website Benefits of Honey which is an immensely rich, quality resource on honey and its benefits, and a plethora of health-related issues. Discover the amazing health benefits and all the positive spin-offs super-food honey can bring to your life and the lives of your loved ones at http://www.benefits-of-honey.com

Modern Beekeeping

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Cooking With Honey-Useful Facts And Tips

Cooking with honey gives you a never-ending list of possibilities and recipes due to the many practical functions honey could serve. Here I list you seven:

And there are several tips on cooking with honey which I believe you will find very useful:

1. As a general guide, when using honey recipes, use less of honey because it is almost twice as sweet as sugar. Replace one cup of sugar for half a cup of honey, and because honey is hygroscopic (meaning it attracts water) , reduce the amount of liquid in the recipe by 1/4 cup for each cup of honey added.

2. Give longer time for beating and more vigorous beating compared to sugar recipes, and when baking with honey.

3. Add 1/2 teaspoon baking soda for each cup of honey used. This will neutralize honey's acidity and help the food rise.

Honeyed Yogurt Cereal Topping

Blend together all the ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Cooking with Honey

The most important thing to remember when using honey in cookery is that it has a high liquid content, and compensation must be made by slightly reducing the other liquids in the recipe.Also it is best, when possible, to add honey towards the end of the cooking to avoid altering its flavours.

One cupful (10 fluid ounces) of honey weighs 15 ounces.

To Substitute honey for sugar in a given recipe, reduce the amount of sweetener called for by a least one-fourth (up to a half, according to your taste), and reduce the liquid in the recipe by one-eighth.

Most cakes, with the exception of spice breads and some dense honey cakes, do not adapt well to honey.It is too heavy, and your cakes will be dense, with no fine crumb.It does, however, give breads a good texture and a longer shelf life.When baking with honey, be careful not to overheat your oven – Gas Mark 6 to Gas mark 7 – because honey will darken and caramelize quickly.

Honey foams dramatically when it reaches boiling point, so use a large saucepan for syrups.

To facilitate measuring, oil or butter measuring spoons and cups (this way it won’t stick), and heat solid honey gently in a bain marie.

Honey is at its peak flavour when freshly harvested, so the autumn is the best time to sample and purchase it.

Storing Honey

Honey will keep in a well-sealed jar for up to two years if stored in a cool, dark place.Once opened it is best to consume it fairly quickly, although it still has a long life.Do not refrigerate, and do not keep in a warm cupboard.If the honey develops a foamy surface it has turned, and should be thrown out.

Honey-Poached Pears

¾ pint dry white wine (preferably Chablis or Chardonnay)

4 fl oz (110ml) honey

1 teaspoonful vanilla extract or 1/2 vanilla pod

2 tablespoonfuls lemon juice

4 firm ripe pears

1 tablespoonful chopped fresh mint

Combine the white wine, honey, vanilla and lemon juice in a non-aluminium saucepan and bring to a boil.Reduce heat and maintain at a simmer.

Peel, quarter and core the pears and drop immediately into the simmering wine.Simmer 15 minutes.Drain and pour the liquid back into the saucepan.

Boil down the wine for about 10 minutes, or until you have about a cupful, and it is thick and amber coloured.

Place the pears in a serving bowl and pour in the wine.Serve warm or chilled, garnished with mint.These can be refrigerated overnight.

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A Practical Manual of Beekeeping: How to Keep Bees and Develop Your Full Potential

Beekeeping Overwintered Colony

Basic Beekeeping Tools - What Do You Really Need?

When you first start a beekeeping business you may feel overwhelmed with the huge amount of choices you have when it comes to beekeeping equipment. There are a lot of beekeeping product suppliers, and unless you are familiar with the basic equipment you will need, you won't know what basic beekeeping tools you will need, and which you won't. In this article, we will go over the basic equipment you need, and what you absolutely must have, and what you can do without.

-The Most Important Equipment is the Hive-

First you need to think about the hives you get. The hive is the absolute most important piece of equipment you have, and you need to take the time to educate yourself and find the right hive for your needs, the type of beekeeping you want and the area you are in.

When you choose your bee hive you can't let the cost affect your decision. You need to choose a hive that is well constructed, made of quality wood. If you can find red cedar, all the better. You see, cedar smells good and is also very attractive. Pine is also used for hives but it isn't as stable as other types of wood. Hives that are made of cedar will not warp and the oils keep the wood very stable.

Once you have looked at different types of hives and asked other local beekeepers what the best hive is for your area, and have chosen the one you want, then its time to go on and look for other equipment.

-The Bees Themselves-

At this point you will need to decide on whether or not you plan on buying a bee colony, or whether you plan on harvesting a swarm. It is easier to buy them, and less dangerous and risky than harvesting them, although it is a little more expensive too.

-The Smoker-

Your next essential item is the "smoker." This item is what allows you to check the hive without being stung. A puff or two of smoke calms the bees down and lets you check the hive while they are disoriented. The smoker allows you to manage the hives safely. When you don't use one, you need to have a top-bar hive, or you risk the chance of being stung.

-Protective Apparel-

You should also get some protective clothing like a bee suit so that you protect yourself from being stung, while you work on the hives. The protective clothing also keeps the honey bees from getting into your clothing. Not only that, but a bee suit will also keep you cooler when you work in the sun.

-Hive Tools and Gloves-

You need to use hive tools to extract the honey and the wax from the hive, you also need the tools to open the hive up. Hive tools come in handy for everything you need that relates to hives.

Gloves are also an item that you might consider getting. Gloves will keep bees from stinging your hands and wrists. They will also help you keep bees from going up into your skin, and stinging you.

Other smaller items you will need are bee feed and honey comb supplies, which the supplier can help you acquire. Essentially that is all the equipment you will need to start your beekeeping business. As you can see, for a business, the investment is minimal. This is good news if you are looking for a home based business that will bring in that extra income you need.

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The Buzz on Making Bees Wax!

From all of us at http://www.kissmybees.com/ we welcome you to another bee article! Many people who use our candles and lip balms occasionally ask us "Where Do You Get Your Bees Wax From?" and also "How Does Bees Wax Get Made?". Well we are here to answer those questions today.

Our Bees Wax candles are made out of 100% pure beeswax with no additives. We get our beeswax mostly from local Florida bee-keepers. The beekeepers are the ones who house and support the bee colonies and as a result produce honey and bee wax. Below is a perfect description from our friends at The Bees Wax Co. on the formation of beeswax by honey bees.

It all begins on a flower in the field. Bees collect nectar from the flowers and bring it to the hive where it becomes either beeswax or honey. A bee's diet consists primarily of honey, and any honey not consumed by the bees or in the raising of brood is stored as surplus and is ultimately consumed in the winter months when no flowers are available. It is the other use of honey that is of interest to us here: the conversion into beeswax.

The production of beeswax is essential to the bee colony. It is used to construct the combs in which the bees raise their brood and into which they store pollen and surplus honey for the winter.

Worker bees, which live only around 35 days in the summer, develop special wax-producing glands on their abdomens (inner sides of the sternites of abdominal segments 4 to 7) and are most efficient at wax production during the 10th through the 16th days of their lives. From about day 18 until the end of its life, a bee's wax glands steadily decline. The bees consume honey (6-8 pound of honey are need to produce a pound of wax) causing the special wax-producing glands to covert the sugar into wax which is extruded through small pores. The wax appears as small flakes on the bees' abdomen. At this point the flakes are essentially transparent and only become white after being chewed. It is in the mastication process that salivary secretions are added to the wax to help soften it. This also accounts for its change in color.

The exact process of how a bee transfers the wax scales from its abdomen to its mandibles was a mystery for years. It's now known to be done in either of two ways. Most of the activities in the hive are cooperative so it should be no surprise that other worker bees are willing to oblige and remove the wax scales from their neighbors and then chew them. The other method is for the same bee extruding the wax to process her own wax scales. This is done using one hind leg to move a wax scale to the first pair of legs (forelegs). A foreleg then makes the final transfer to the mandibles where it is masticated and then applied to the comb being constructed or repaired.

Beeswax becomes soft and very pliable if the temperature is too high (it actually melts at 149 F). Likewise, it becomes brittle and difficult to manage if the temperature is too low. However, honeybees maintain their hive at a temperature of around 95 degreesFahrenheit which is just perfect for the manipulation of beeswax: not to hot to be at the point of dripping and not to cold to so as to be brittle.

A honeycomb constructed from beeswax is nothing short of a triumph of engineering. It consists of hexagon shaped cylinders (six-sided) that fit naturally side-by-side. It has been definitively proven by mathematicians that by making the cells into hexagons, it is the very most efficient: the smallest possible amount of wax is used for the volume of honey it contains. It has also been shown to be one of the strongest possible shapes while using the least amount of material.

The color of beeswax comprising a comb is at first white and then darkens with age and use. This is especially true if it is used to raise brood. Pigmentation in the wax can result in colors ranging from white, through shades of yellow, orange, and red all the way to brown. The color has no significance as to the quality of the wax (other than its aesthetic appeal).